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“A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”James Madison, from a letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822

Welcome to the official website for the Research Network of Anti-Corruption Agencies (ANCORAGE-NET). The network was set up following the international conference European Anti-Corruption Agencies: protecting the Community’s financial interests in a knowledge-based, innovative and integrated manner, which took place in Lisbon, 17-19 May 2006. At this Conference, all participating ACA heads from Europe and other parts of the world kindly agreed to give substance to this project by voluntarily depositing (and updating) any relevant information concerning the functioning and activities of their specialised agencies. There was no founding declaration and no statutes were approved. The collective commitment to work together to develop and share knowledge-based, innovative and integrated solutions to corruption control was kept informal. The project relies on the constructive input of ACA officials and their goodwill to contribute positively to the contents of this portal.

These are some of the background questions you will be able to look up in our database:

What is an ACA? When do ACAs emerge? Why are they set up and what are they meant for? Is there a particular context and purpose, including a national strategy?

What institutional shape was followed? Was there a founding “model”? Or were they simply a product of local institutional dynamics? What agencies also take responsibility for anti-corruption activity? Where do ACAs fit into the overall public sector context?

What is the overall mission of ACAs: protecting revenue, promoting democracy, keeping donors happy? What is the scope of their mandate? What types of cases are investigated? What are the mechanisms in place to guarantee and scrutinise the proper use of special powers?

How independent are they? Are there clear appointment and dismissal rules that are applicable to head officials? Are ACAs sufficiently staffed with qualified human resources to match the powers attributed to them? Are there training and induction programs for officials to help them perform their duties?

How do ACAs work with other agencies? Who are they accountable to? What is the scope of their cooperation with other ACAs abroad?

How do they relate to civil society? Do they have an open complaints system? How do they relate to the media? What use do they make of ICT?

How do they measure performance, success and impact? How far does the governance context affect the work of ACAs? Why and when do ACAs fail?

Will they remain permanent institutional features of the structure of government or will they slowly disappear as conventional enforcement agencies gradually become more effective and regain public prestige and support? Will ACAs continue to expand to new countries or will the demand for these specialised agencies start to fade as the attention of world institutions moves away from corruption to other more pressing global problems?

We hope ANCORAGE-NET is useful to you in your work and we look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions.

Finally, we would like to give warm thanks to all our partners for their availability, cooperation and collective commitment. We look forward to expanding our membership to other ACAs around the world and to increasing our co-operation with other anti-corruption research networks and NGOs.

MISSION STATEMENT

ANCORAGE-NET is an online research network of anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) whose primary aim is to provide comprehensive and easily accessible information about the format, functioning and activities of these bodies to practitioners and analysts in the field of corruption control.

Anti-corruption agencies are public bodies of a durable nature responsible for the fight against corruption and a reduction in the opportunity structures for such behaviour/practice through preventive and/or repressive strategies.

The network represents the first attempt to provide an internet database with substantive country-based and comparative institutional information on various ACAs in Europe and other parts of the world. Further to the primary data collected and analysed and the direct links to the agencies’ websites, the ANCORAGE-NET portal also offers an easily accessible country-based repository of anti-corruption legislation, news, survey results, reports, and research directly or indirectly relating to ACAs.

By widely disseminating this information, it is hoped that ACAs gradually anchor their activities in civil society and bring about knowledge-based, innovative and integrated solutions to corruption control.

THE PROJECT

A distinctive feature of anti-corruption activity in the 90s is the level of regulatory and institutional innovation achieved. In addition to the role played by the traditional anti-corruption actors, we also witnessed the rise of new players, such as the anti-corruption agencies (ACAs).

Although the pioneers of these institutional units can be traced back in time, in the form of parliamentary commissions, inquiry committees, special police branches, anti-corruption leagues, the first ACAs date from the postcolonial period in the aftermath of World War II (1952, Singapore, Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau; 1967, Malaysia, Anti-Corruption Agency; 1974, Hong Kong SAR, Independent Commission Against Corruption). These early agencies were either created by the declining European powers as an attempt to clean-up the not-so-clean reputation of their colonial administrations or put in place by the new governments as a part of their endeavour, as independent states, to build a new administration rid of old habits and “corrupt” practices inherited from the colonial powers. Out of these, the Hong Kong ICAC, created in 1974, has been one of the most successful ventures and it has become a model to many others in the Anglo-Saxon world and beyond.

Since the end of the Cold War, the geographical location of these bodies has expanded from the developing to the developed world, from transitional to consolidated democracies, as corruption has started to be discussed and condemned beyond the stereotypical vision which previously restricted it to the southern hemisphere. Corruption went global, so to speak, and so did anti-corruption efforts. ACAs are often born out of a broad political consensus in a context of scandal and crisis, thus telling us much about the short existence of some of these bodies and/or their limited capacity to deliver results.

However, the domestic and international aspects of the creation of ACAs are increasingly intertwined. World institutions have incessantly recommended the creation of an ACA as an important piece in a country’s institutional architecture and grand strategy against corruption. In Central and East European countries, ACAs have also been recommended as part of macro anti-corruption programmes with a view to EU membership. The Copenhagen criteria put forward reforms related to the functioning of the political sphere and the judiciary as a pre-condition to accession.

The format of these agencies and their success in keeping up with new forms of corruption vary greatly from one country to another. But there is also a good deal of institutional mimetism. On the one hand, the creation of ACAs was the product of specific patterns of legal and institutional development and of reactions to emerging challenges. Each agency is, in that respect, one of a kind. Some countries have endowed their agencies with the power to investigate and prosecute, whereas others have preferred a more preventive, educational and informative role. There are also differences with regard to their scope of action, resources, accountability requirements, etc. On the other hand, there has also been a convergence in the type of agency adopted. It may be improper to use the word model, but at least we could say that, since the late 1980s, we have witnessed an increasing transfer between countries of knowledge regarding the format of these bodies. Knowledge of the successes and failures in foreign experience and the importation of models already tested abroad is an important feature of this policy and institutional engineering process.

Independently of their format and powers, ACAs encounter various constraints to their mandate, which explains the meagre results obtained by some of them: 1) difficulties in unveiling corruption via complaints (technical, statutory and cultural); 2) difficulties in obtaining information about corruption and its opportunity structures from other state bodies/agencies and 3) difficulties in establishing a good working relationship with the political sphere. There is also a discrepancy between expected results and achievable ones that should not be ignored. Certain ACAs remain unknown to the wider public and do not anchor their anti-corruption/fraud role in civil society. This is partly due to their format and partly to a lack of understanding of the centrality of citizens in the whole process of control, given the obscure nature of these transactions.

These specialised bodies are an important object of study for various reasons. They are fairly new (the oldest is 54 years old); their numbers are increasing steadily; their establishment is often central to broader national anti-corruption programmes/strategies; they are oriented towards a single-issue: their sole mission is to combat corruption; they are an attempt by governments to overcome the insufficiency and/or inadequacy of conventional law enforcement agencies in coping with the growing sophistication of corrupt mechanisms and transactions as well as detecting and/or prosecuting complex corruption cases. In contrast to law enforcement agencies, ACAs have been designed to develop a preventive capacity and, at the same time, to generate a knowledge-based approach to corruption through research. In principle, these bodies are provided with a team of experts (whilst drawing knowledge and experience from and exchanging them with several other monitoring and regulatory units), an ample mandate, investigative powers, statutory autonomy and adequate funding to ensure that effective preventive steps are identified and put in place. In practice, however, the label “ACA” does not fit many of the realities encountered.

We do not yet know how long these agencies will exist. Will they remain permanent institutional features of the governmental structure or will they slowly disappear while conventional enforcement agencies become gradually more effective and regain public prestige and support? Will ACAs continue to expand to new countries or will the demand for these specialised agencies start to fade as the attention of world institutions moves away from corruption into other more pressing global problems? For all these reasons, it is important to try to understand the nature, capabilities and performance of these agencies and to make the results available to academics and practitioners working in and on the field. This is the objective we have committed ourselves to pursuing with the creation of ANCORAGE-NET.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

ANCORAGE-NET was set up following an international conference entitled European Anti-Corruption Agencies: protecting the Community’s financial interests in a knowledge-based, innovative and integrated manner, which took place in Lisbon, 17-19 May 2006. The symposium was attended by a wide range of official entities, individuals and civil society organisations responsible for the fight against corruption in Europe and other parts of the world. At the top, there were the heads and senior representatives of ACAs from various EU member states, candidate countries and third parties eligible under OLAF’s Hercule Training Grant, the reason for the organisation of this initiative. Members of conventional enforcement agencies (magistrates, heads of investigative police units and of auditing offices, etc) were also invited, especially from those countries which had not decided to create a specialised ACA. Other participants included: senior officials from IGOs (OLAF, GRECO, UNDOC); representatives from donor coalitions (U4 – Utstein Anti-Corruption Resource Centre) and anti-corruption policy and institutional networks (EHFCN and EPAC); academics and experts in the field of corruption control; international and domestic NGOs (Transparency International, TIRI, CIP-Mozambique, OIKOS); journalists, and high profile personalities, in particular, the former president of the Portuguese Republic, Mr Jorge Sampaio.

The meeting was organised by CIES – Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (Lisbon, Portugal) in collaboration with the Australian National University (Canberra, Australia) and was co-financed by the Hercule Grant Programme of the European Antifraud Office. It was an opportunity for academics and practitioners in the field of corruption in Europe and other parts of the world to exchange first-hand experience and knowledge about the role, powers and activities of ACAs, with a view to undertaking further integrated initiatives and policy research.

One month prior to the conference, a questionnaire was circulated to all ACA heads in EU member states and accession and partner countries with 65 questions focusing on various aspects of their mission, mandate, powers, special powers, internal and external accountability framework, funding, organisation and social composition, activities, networking and usage of ICT. All participating countries provided us with a brief account of their national strategies against corruption, including those that do not have them or those where there is a current debate about the creation of such specialized agencies. The information contained in the various National Assessment Surveys on ACAs was treated comparatively and is now available online.

At the conference, the heads of the ACAs kindly agreed to give substance to this project by voluntarily depositing (and updating) any relevant information concerning the functioning and activities of their specialised agencies. These participants are part of a number of networks and have a seat at various IGO meetings as part of the national delegations of their countries. They meet in a formal institutional context to discuss measures and strategies to combat corruption. In these meetings they can sometimes discuss aspects concerning their operation and performance, but they have never been the object of discussion and analysis per se. The conference was innovative insofar as it invited the ACA heads to discuss, interactively, these and other issues in a friendly academic context. As experts who are also insiders, they confronted the top academics and specialists currently doing research on ACAs. The interaction between research and first-hand experience was enriching to both sides and contributed positively to fostering and improving our general knowledge about these institutional creatures which are likely to remain central to domestic anti-corruption architectures for the next few decades.

The level of formality was kept to the minimum. It was intended, from the outset, that ANCORAGE-NET would operate as a research network and not an institutional network in the mould of the already existing European Partners Against Corruption (EPAC) or the planned European Anti-Corruption Network (EACN). It is not the intention of ANCORAGE-NET to promote co-operation between law enforcement agencies or staff exchanges and training programmes between ACAs. Indirectly, however, the project can work as a tool of communication and the diffusion of knowledge between ACAs around the world and between these and civil society at large. Its ultimate goal is to share knowledge about the nature, format and performance of these institutional realities, which have grown in numbers and visibility in recent years in order to bring about knowledge-based, innovative and integrated solutions to corruption control. Accordingly, there was no founding declaration and there were no statutes approved. The project has simply relied on the goodwill of European ACA officials and their interest in giving birth to this portal and extending membership to other agencies outside Europe. The New South Wales Independent Commission against Corruption in Australia, the Argentinean Oficina Anticorrupción (Anticorruption Office) and the Malawi Anti-Corruption Bureau joined the network after the event.

The three-day conference was the kick-off for this project by achieving, in a very short period of time, a friendly and solid work environment for future collaborative endeavours. This was the first of a series of other meetings that, hopefully, will take place in the coming years. Transnational co-operation will continue under the auspices of the first online research network of ACAs: ANCORAGE-NET. The ACA heads will be regularly contacted and asked to supply new information on their activities and anti-corruption strategies, on successes and achievements which they might wish to share with colleagues from other countries, on publications of mutual interest (e.g. reports, policy papers), and so on. Other dissemination tools such as newsletters, working paper series and professional mailing lists will be set up in order to send out regular information about the network’s future activities and products.

NEXT STEPS

There are currently 15 members from 14 different countries: Argentina, Australia (State of New South Wales), Croatia, the Czech Republic (two agencies), France, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Malawi, Moldova, the Republic of Macedonia, the Republic of Montenegro, Romania and the Slovak Republic.

For the purposes of the comparative data available, we only consider those countries that have an agency of this type effectively in place. However, it is a fact that not all countries have decided to create specialised anti-corruption agencies to curb corruption. Some have recently considered their adoption at the regional and national level. For that reason, the network does not exclude the participation of those countries that have not yet adopted this type of institutional response to corruption. Although the comparative data available in this portal relates primarily to countries with ACAs, it is the intention of this project to provide a balanced representation of the various systems of repression/prevention available in order to allow users to make a fair assessment of ACA successes and shortcomings. ANCORAGE-NET does not speak up for the adoption of specialised anti-corruption agencies. Conventional judicial and enforcement mechanisms can be as successful, or unsuccessful, in their intent.

Country

Name of Agency

Acronym

Date of Creation

Argentina

Oficina Anticorrupción (Anticorruption Office)

OA

1999

Australia

New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption

NSW ICAC

1988

Croatia

Ured za suzbijanje korupcije I organiziranog kriminaliteta (The Office for the Prevention of Corruption and Organised Crime)

USKOK

2001

Czech Republic (I)

Police of the Czech Republic, Unit Combating Corruption and Financial Crime, Criminal Police and Investigation Service

UCCFC

1991

Czech Republic (II)

Ministry of Interior of the Czech republic, Security Policies Department

NEWS

STOP CORRUPTION is a cross-party initiative started by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from different countries. The petition site is http://www.stopcorruption.eu/

STOP CORRUPTION is a cross-party initiative started by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from different countries. You can sign it here.

04 December 2008

Homage to Prof. Abel Fleitas

I regret to inform you that Prof. Abel Fleitas Ortiz de Rozas, Director of the Argentina anti-corruption agency, Oficina Anticorrupción (OA) (http://www.anticorrupcion.gov.ar) has passed away at the age of 65.

As Director of ANCORAGE-NET, I have already presented our condolences to his family.

The Second Meeting of the Network on Anti-Corruption Agencies (ANCORAGE-NET) will take place at the University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE) on 14-16 May 2008.The training session, entitled Empowering Anti-Corruption Agencies: Defying Institutional Failure and Strengthening Preventive and Repressive Capacities, is organised by CIES-ISCTE, in collaboration with the Australian National University, and co-financed under OLAF’s Hercule Training Programme. For further information please contact Mrs. Ana Ferreira (ana.ferreira@iscte.pt).

METHODOLOGY

This explorative analysis is based on the comparative results obtained through the questionnaire sent to the heads of the Anti-Corruption Agencies. Further primary materials were obtained directly from the agencies’ websites and their information services.

The countries assessed were: Argentina, Australia (State of New South Wales), Croatia, the Czech Republic (two agencies), France, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Malawi, Moldova, the Republic of Macedonia, the Republic of Montenegro, Romania and the Slovak Republic.

For the purposes of our analysis, we are only considering those countries that have an agency of this type effectively in place. Portugal, for instance, had an anti-corruption agency in the past (AACC – Alta Autoridade Contra a Corrupção). It was extinguished in 1992 by parliamentary vote and for that reason the information collected from former AACC members was not included in this analysis, though it will be available for consultation in ‘other documents’.

The sample is still small, 15 ACAs in 14 different countries, hence we have to be cautious in extrapolating general patterns or conclusions. Although the sample is also quite homogeneous in terms of geographical spread (10 Central and Eastern European cases, 1 Western European, 1 Latin American, 1 Pacific and 1 African), there is sufficient diversity across the cases and we expect to find interesting clusters as we expand the project beyond Europe.

DATA

COMPARATIVE DATA

COMPARATIVE DATA ON ACAS

National Assessment Survey on ACAs: A Comparative Perspective

Anti-corruption agencies are public (funded) bodies of a durable nature whose specific mission is to fight corruption and associated crimes, and to reduce the opportunity structures favourable to its occurrence through preventive and repressive strategies. The first ACAs date from the postcolonial period in the aftermath of World War II and have since been set up in many countries from the developed and developing world.[1] Many global institutions[2] recommend or suggested the creation of ACAs as an important piece of the national institutional architecture and grand strategy against corruption. In Central and East Europe countries, ACAs have also been recommended as part of macro anti-corruption programmes promoted in view of EU membership.[3]

ACA’s vary in scope and powers. Some have been endowed with investigative and prosecution powers (e.g. Croatia, Romania and Slovak Republic), others play a more preventive, educational and informative role (e.g. France, Malta and Montenegro). There are also differences with regard to their scope of action, resources, accountability requirements, etc. Independently of their format and competences, however, ACAs encounter various constraints to their mandate, which explains the meagre results obtained by some of them: 1) difficulties in unveiling corruption via complaints (technical, statutory and cultural); 2) difficulties in obtaining information about corruption and its opportunity structures from other state bodies/agencies and 3) difficulties in establishing a good working relationship with the political sphere. Certain ACAs remain unknown to the wider public and do not anchor their anti-corruption/fraud role in civil society. This is partly due to their format and partly to a lack of understanding of the centrality of citizens to the whole process of control, given the obscure nature of these transactions.

ANCORAGE-NET is the first attempt to provide an internet database with substantive country-based and comparative institutional information on various anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) in Europe and abroad. This information will be made available online. Further to the primary data collected and analysed and direct links to the agencies’ websites, the portal also offers an easily accessible country-based repository of anti-corruption legislation, news, survey results, reports, and research concerning directly or indirectly ACAs. By sharing this information widely, we hope to help ACAs gradually anchoring their activities in civil society (by making citizens’ more involved and aware of their activities and modus operandi) and bringing about knowledge-based, innovative and integrated solutions to corruption control.

[2] Art. 6 of the UN Convention Against Corruption, Art. 20 of the Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, OECD Ethics infrastructure, Transparency International’s Anti-Corruption Handbook

[3] The Copenhagen criteria suggest reforms related to the functioning of the political sphere and the judiciary as a pre-condition to accession.

NEW TRENDS IN POLITICAL FINANCING REGULATION IN ASIA AND EUROPE:THE NEW ROLE OF MONITORING & ENFORCEMENT BODIES [ 18-02-2010 > 19-02-2010 ]

Location: Lisbon :: Organization: ICS-UL/ASEF

Draft Programme

The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and the Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS) of the University of Lisbon, in close cooperation with the Council of Europe and Transparency International, are organising a workshop on “New Trends in Political Financing Regulation: the Role of Monitoring/Enforcement Bodies” which will be held on 18-19 February 2009, in Lisbon, Portugal. The workshop is organised under ASEF’s Asia-Europe Democratisation and Justice series (AEDJ).

This two day workshop aims to look at what can be learnt about self-regulating political financing by comparing the different regulatory experiences that have evolved across countries in Asia and Europe. Invitations to the event will be issued to 35 Asian and European experts from relevant bodies in ASEM ministries, practitioners in the field of political financing and representatives from international and regional institutions (such as relevant bodies in the Council of Europe, the ASEAN Secretariat, the EC) national and international NGOs, the academe, think tanks, research institutes and the media.

RESEARCH TEAM

Project Director

Luís de Sousa is principal researcher in Political Science at CIES-ISCTE, Lisbon, Portugal. His research interests focus on corruption control and ethics reform, political system reform, comparative politics and public policies, European integration, e-democracy and corporate governance. Most recent publications include: ‘The regulation of political financing in Portugal: a political and historical analysis’, West European Politics, January 2004, 27(1), 124-145; ‘Hard responses to corruption: Penal standards and the repression of corruption in Britain, France and Portugal’, Crime, Law and Social Change, October 2002, 38(3), 267-294; ‘Corruption and Parties in Portugal’, West European Politics, 24(1), January 2001, 157-180; ‘Corrupção, ética de governo e eleitores: Algumas reflexões sobre o impacto da corrupção e impropriedade, como ‘voting issue’, durante a queda das maiorias Social-Democrata e Conservadora em Portugal (1995) e no Reino Unido (1997)’ in Braga da Cruz (ed.) A Reforma do Estado em Portugal – Problemas e Perspectivas, Lisboa, Bizâncio, 2001; (co-authored with Yves Mény) ‘Corruption Political/Public Aspects’ in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, New York, Pergamon/Elsevier, 2000.

Consultative Committee

Crawford School of Economics and Government of the Australian National University

Location: Australia

Peter Larmour is a Reader in the Policy and Governance program at the Crawford School of Economics and Government of the Australian National University. He has been senior lecture in various Pacific universities (Tasmania, PNG and Fiji) and visiting fellow to the universities of Hawaii, Hong Kong, Christchurch, Wisconsin-Madison and Warwick. He specialises in the transferability of institutions, Pacific Islands politics and governance, corruption and Anti Corruption. His most recent publications include: Foreign Flowers: Institutional Transfer and Good Governance in the Pacific Islands. Honolulu (2005): University of Hawaii Press; (with N. Wolanin, eds.) Corruption and Anti-Corruption. Canberra 2001: Asia Pacific Press in association with the Australian Institute of Criminology; (ed.) Governance and Reform in the South Pacific. Canberra 1998: National Centre for Development Studies; (with H. Colebatch) Market Bureaucracy and Community: A Student’s Guide to Organisation, London (1993): Pluto Press. He is co-directing with Barry Hindess a three-year research project on ‘Transparency International and the Problem of Corruption’ funded by the Australia Research Council.

Consultative Committee

Ivan Krastev is a political scientist and Chair of Board of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria. Since 2004 Mr. Krastev has been the executive director of the International Commission on the Balkans chaired by the former Italian Premier Minister Giuliano Amato. He is the Director of the Open Century Project of the Central European University in Budapest. In 2006 Ivan Krastev was awarded membership in the Forum of Young Global Leaders, a partner organization of the World Economic Forum. His latest book in English is: Shifting Obsessions: Three Essays on the Politics of Anticorruption, CEU Press, 2004. The book The Anti-American Century edited by Alan McPpherson and Ivan Krastev is forthcoming in 2006 by CEU Press. Ivan Krastev is the Editor in Chief of the Bulgarian edition of Foreign Policy.

Consultative Committee

Jon Quah is a Professor in Political Science at the National University of Singapore. Professor Quah was a Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Program in International Legal Studies (Stanford University, October-December 1997), at the Harvard-Yenching Institute (July-September 1997 and September 1979-June 1980), and at the Harvard Institute of International Development (August 1993-March 1994). He was Research Associate at the Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley from September 1986-May 1987; and Professional Associate at the Culture Learning Institute, East-West Center, Hawaii during February-March 1978. His teaching responsibilities at the Department include Public Policy and Governance in Singapore, Corruption and Governance in Asian Countries, and Public Administration: Basic Concepts and Approaches. His current research interests focus on corruption and civil service reform in Asian countries, and public policy and governance in Singapore. He was the United Nations Development Programme’s Lead Consultant for the Anti-Corruption Mission to Mongolia from September to November 1998. He recently completed an evaluation of personnel management in the Macau Civil Service for the Government of Macau. He is also a member of Transparency International’s Governance Research Council and Chairman of the Singapore National Crime Prevention Council’s Research Committee.

Consultative Committee

Alan Doig is Professor of Public Services Management and joined Teesside Business School in 2001 from Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores University. His areas of teaching and research are public services management. He specialises in the impact of change and the issues of governance and fraud management also specialising in operational and organisational issues relating to prevention, detection and investigation of fraud and corruption. Professor Doig has written and edited books including Public Inquiries into Abuse of Children in Residential Care; Corruption and Democratisation; Sleaze: Politics, Private Interests and Public Reaction. Articles include Old Populism or New Public Management? Policing Fraud in the UK (Public Policy and Administration); Ethics in Local Government: Evaluating Self Regulation in England and Wales (Local Government Studies); and with John Wilson, The Impact of Thatcherism on Delivery of Public Services in the UK (Australian Journal of Public Administration) and Local Government Management: A Model for the Future? (Public Management, now Public Management Review). He his also: Head of the Fraud Management Studies Unit; Consultant on Anti-Corruption Agencies; co-author of U4 Report on Anti-Corruption Agencies; Project Director on 36 country studies relating to corruption; Project Director of the EU PHARE Project on The Review and Implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Programme of the Government of Lithuania.

Consultative Committee

Michael Johnston is Charles A. Dana Professor of Political Science and Director of the Colgate University Center for Ethics and World Societies. He has been Visiting Professor in many prestigious universities, including Yale, Pittsburgh, Princeton, Durham (England), and Santiago de Compostela (Spain). He is a worldwide expert on ethics and corruption and has worked as a consultant to various governmental (USAID), international (World Bank, UNDP, OECD) and civil society organisations (Transparency International) devoted to anti-corruption programmes. He is a member of editorial boards in numerous French and international academic journals. His main scientific interests are in the field of corruption and anti-corruption strategies, comparative government and institutions, Asian politics and administration. His most recent publications include: Political Corruption: Concepts and Contexts, New Brunswick (NJ): Transaction Publishers, 2002; (with Alan Doig) “Different Views on Good Government and Sustainable Anticorruption Strategies” in Stapenhurst and Kpundeh (eds.) Curbing Corruption: Toward a Model for Building National Integrity, Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1999, 13-34; “The Search for Definitions: The Vitality of Politics and the Issue of Corruption”, International Social Science Journal 149 (1996), 321- 335; (Co-Editor Heidenheimer and LeVine); Political Corruption: A Handbook, New Brunswick (NJ): Transaction Publishers, 1989; “The Political Consequences of Corruption: A Reassessment”, Comparative Politics 18/4 (1986), 459-477; “Right and Wrong in American Politics: Popular Conceptions of Corruption”, Polity 18/3 (1986), 367-391

Researchers

João Triães is a researcher in Social Sciences at CIES-ISCTE, Lisbon, Portugal. In 2004 he has completed his Licenciatura (MA Honours) at ISCTE (University Institute for Social Sciences, Business Studies and Technologies), with a thesis entitled “Sociological perspectives of corruption: Actors, mechanisms and resources of the crime of corruption in Portugal (1999-2001)”. He participated, as research associate, in two projects on monitoring campaign expenditure – one on local and other on presidential elections (“Autárquicas 2005″ and “Presidenciais 2006”) – commissioned by the new Monitoring Unit for Political Financing and Accounts (ECFP – Entidade das Contas e Financiamentos Políticos) of the Portuguese Constitutional Court. He worked as an intern at the Central Department for Penal Action and Investigation of the Attorney-General Office (DCIAP), where he had to analyse all court cases on corruption from 1999-2001 and organise information on a database so to produce a final report which attempted to sketch empirically the criminal profile of active and passive, singular and collective, corrupt actors. He is currently working on a major research survey on ethic values and attitudes towards corruption in Portugal.